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William Apess's Indian Nullification (1835) engages various forms of nullification, drawn from contemporary politics, secular history, and Judeo-Christian tradition, as part of a collective expression of sovereignty meant to gain ground (literally and figuratively) for the Mashpee Wampanoags. This essay argues that, for Apess, nullification emerges as a transformative practice that can be used in the absence of treaties to articulate the Mashpees' political and religious claims and leverage new political possibilities for them, in part through its invocation of the 1780 Massachusetts Constitution. References to nullification also allow him to transform and elevate the Mashpees' situation from one of local concern to national and even eschatological importance. Nullification provides an avenue to respond to characterizations of Mashpees that circulated in the New England press in which their situation was used as an occasion, or even a vehicle, for working through issues of concern for many white Americans, such as miscegenation (to use a term common in the era) and growing sectional tensions. The essay concludes by briefly connecting Apess's arguments with the Mashpee Wampanoags' more recent efforts to gain federal recognition and assert their territorial claims.

Aunque no existe en los Estados Unidos una cláusula similar a nuestro art. 155 o al art. 37 de la Ley Fundamental de Bonn, la intervención federal ha encontrado una fuente de legitimidad tanto en la Constitución de los Estados Unidos como en las leyes que la desarrollan. No obstante, el alcance de las normas referentes a la intervención federal solo puede comprenderse desde las narrativas que las sitúan y las dotan de sentido. El propósito de este trabajo es, precisamente, hacer un recorrido histórico por la regulación y la aplicación de la intervención federal en Estados Unidos, desde la aprobación de la Constitución hasta nuestros días. Como podrá verse, la coerción federal en momentos críticos ha sido decisiva para el desarrollo de una auténtica identidad nacional americana. Although a Constitutional clause similar to our article 155 or to article 37 Bonn Basic Law does not exist in the United States, federal intervention has found a source of legitimacy both in the United States Constitution and in the statutes developing it. However, the scope of the provisions regarding federal intervention can only be understood through the narratives that place them and provide them with meaning. The purpose of this article is precisely to explain the historical development of the norms regarding federal intervention and their application in the United States, from the ratification of the Constitution to our days. As will be seen, federal coercion in critical moments has been decisive for the development of a true American national identity.

The United States witnessed an unprecedented failure of its political system in the mid-nineteenth century, resulting in a disastrous civil war that claimed the lives of an estimated 750,000 Americans. In his other acclaimed books about the American presidency, Fred Greenstein assesses the personal strengths and weaknesses of presidents from George Washington to Barack Obama. Here, he evaluates the leadership styles of the Civil War-era presidents. Using his trademark no-nonsense approach, Greenstein looks at the presidential qualities of James K. Polk, Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, and Abraham Lincoln. For each president, he provides a concise history of the man's life and presidency, and evaluates him in the areas of public communication, organizational capacity, political skill, policy vision, cognitive style, and emotional intelligence. Greenstein sheds light on why Buchanan is justly ranked as perhaps the worst president in the nation's history, how Pierce helped set the stage for the collapse of the Union and the bloodiest war America had ever experienced, and why Lincoln is still considered the consummate American leader to this day. Presidents and the Dissolution of the Unionreveals what enabled some of these presidents, like Lincoln and Polk, to meet the challenges of their times--and what caused others to fail.

The Nullification Crisis of 1832-1833, when the state of South Carolina challenged the doctrine of states' rights by refusing to pay national tariffs, was the major crisis of Andrew Jackson's presidency and a central event in antebellum American history. In this clear, authoritative account, Richard E. Ellis shows how the President's swift, decisive response reaffirmed the primacy of the national government and helped to shape Jacksonian democracy.

In Shrill Hurrahs, Kate Gillin presents a new perspective on gender roles and racial violence in South Carolina during Reconstruction and the decades after the 1876 election of Wade Hampton as governor. In the aftermath of the Civil War, southerners struggled to either adapt or resist changes to their way of life. Gillin accurately perceives racial violence as an attempt by white southern men to reassert their masculinity, weakened by the war and emancipation, and as an attempt by white southern women to preserve their antebellum privileges. As she reevaluates relationships between genders, Gillin also explores relations within the female gender. She has demonstrated that white women often exacerbated racial and gender violence alongside men, even when other white women were victims of that violence. Through the nineteenth century, few bridges of sisterhood were built between black and white women. Black women asserted their rights as mothers, wives, and independent free women in the postwar years, while white women often opposed these assertions of black female autonomy. Ironically even black women participated in acts of intimidation and racial violence in an attempt to safeguard their rights. In the turmoil of an era that extinguished slavery and redefined black citizenship, race, not gender, often determined the relationships that black and white women displayed in the defeated South. By canvassing and documenting numerous incidents of racial violence, from lynching of black men to assaults on white women, Gillin proposes a new view of postwar South Carolina. Tensions grew over controversies including the struggle for land and labor, black politicization, the creation of the Ku Klux Klan, the election of 1876, and the rise of lynching. Gillin addresses these issues and more as she focusses on black women’s asserted independence and white women’s role in racial violence. Despite the white women’s reactionary activism, the powerful presence of black women and their bravery in the face of white violence reshaped southern gender roles forever.

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Madison's Ascension and Jeffersonian Factionalism Madison and the Constitution: Vetoes and Joseph Story The Non‐Intercourse Act, Macon's Bills, and a Second Bank of the United States Political Solidarity but National Strife during the War of 1812 Madison Shapes the Awakening of American Nationalism Further Reading

From George Washington's decision to buy time for the new nation by signing the less-than-ideal Jay Treaty with Great Britain in 1795 to George W. Bush's order of a military intervention in Iraq in 2003, the matter of who is president of the United States is of the utmost importance. In this book, Fred Greenstein examines the leadership styles of the earliest presidents, men who served at a time when it was by no means certain that the American experiment in free government would succeed.

Political scientist Thomas F. Schaller examines in detail the unique role of South Carolina in American history and politics. The center of the Nullification Crisis of the nineteenth century, as well as the first state to secede, the Palmetto State has consistently been at the forefront of opposition to the federal government and a virulent insistence on the sanctity of states’ rights. Its importance continues today, as Schaller demonstrates, including the prominent role that the state's primary and customary visits to Bob Jones University play for the GOP presidential nominating process. From the 1770s South Carolina embraced the resister's role with relish and John C. Calhoun—perhaps its favorite son—is virtually synonymous with the antebellum “nullification” movement and the doctrine of interposition. Schaller examines why it is that South Carolina has repeatedly distinguished itself as a federal outlier to the Republic—a state first to secede, and often last to accede—to the laws and norms embraced by much of the rest of the nation. In doing so, he links the past to the present.

This chapter contains sections titled: References

After a decade of work among the Cherokee, the Board’s attempts at a settlement mission seemed to have paid off well. The Cherokee seemed to be adopting the civilization that the missionaries had been urging, and there were tangible signs of these developments. In the 1820s, the Cherokee committed their language to writing and adopted a written constitution. For excited missionary supporters, these were clear indications of civilization and assimilation. While the numbers of Christian converts were never overwhelming, Cherokee missionaries saw a regular stream of several conversions a year, more than most other Board missions did in this era.